The 30th International Labor Conference

The International Labor Conference, the legislative body of the ILO, convened for its 30th session on June 19,1947, at Geneva. C. J. Hambro (Norway) was elected president; vice-presidents selected were Carlos Desmaras (Argentina), Robert Watt (United States) and Sir John Forbes-Watson (United Kingdom).

Originally designated by the terms of its Constitution as an international agency for the collection and dissemination of information in the field of nutrition, food, and agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations developed a much wider field of activity during 1946, its first working year. Recognizing the need for an international agency with real administrative powers, the FAO assumed the task of helping to ameliorate the world food crisis, while at the same time setting up an organization for long-range planning and statistical work.

The Australian Government was notified on May 23 of the decision of the Governors of the Fund approving Australia's application for membership. Australia was given until August 31, 1947 to accept membership, subject to the terms and conditions set down by the Board of Governors. Upon accepting membership on August 5, Australia's quota in the Fund became $200,000,000.

On December 18, 1946, the International Monetary Fund announced the initial par values of the currencies of its members and stated that exchange transactions through the Fund would commence March 1, 1947. Eight of the member states — Brazil, China, Dominican Republic, Greece, Poland, Yugoslavia, France in respect of French Indo-China, and the Netherlands in respect of the Netherlands East Indies — requested and received from the Fund additional time for the determination of initial par values; the establishment of the par value for Uruguay's currency was postponed, pending the completion of certain legislative steps in that country.

Established on December 27, 1945, when the Bretton Woods agreements were signed in Washington, the International Monetary Fund has been primarily concerned with organizational and policy problems during its first year of existence. Not until September was the Fund ready to begin the actual work of establishing stable relationships between currencies and facilitating international trade.

In December 1946, the United Nations General Assembly voted to submit to member countries the draft constitution of the International Refugee Organization, the provisions of which stipulated that the IRO was to come into existence after acceptance by fifteen countries, whose contributions would provide at least 75 per cent of its operational budget. By February, 1947, eleven governments had signed the Constitution, pending subsequent ratification for effective participation: Canada, Dominican Republic, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Liberia, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippine Republic, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The second part of the first session of the IRO Preparatory Commission convened on May 1, 1947, at Lausanne, Switzerland, to continue work started in February, 1947, concerning the problem of refugees and displaced persons in relation to the setting up of the International Refugee Organization. Due to cessation on June 30, 1947, of relief activities by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, the Commission faced the immediate problem of taking over resettlement work and care of displaced persons which formerly had been handled by UNRRA and the IGC.

Like the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development devoted most of its first year of existence to the creation of a working organization, postponing its program of making loans to facilitate the reconstruction and development of productive capacity in many nations.

Three world telecommunications conferences, called by the United States, were held throughout the spring and summer of 1947 to deal with urgent problems resulting from dislocations of war and recent advances in the several fields covered by the International Telecommunications Union. At a preliminary Telecommunications Conference, held at Moscow in September, 1946, representatives of China, France, the United Kingdom, USSR, and the United States had decided that existing telecommunications conventions and regulations required revision to meet present needs; for this purpose the conferences were called.

The statute for the creation of the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization was the product of the International Civil Aviation Conference held in Chicago, Illinois, November 1 to December 7, 1944. The Conference agreed that pending the establishment of a permanent international organization to handle problems of air transport, a provisional organization, to exist for not more than three years, should be created when 26 countries had ratified the agreement, to start work on the complex issues arising from the extension of international air routes to most of the major countries of the world.

Continuing the work of the first session of the Preparatory Committee of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment, which was held in London from October 15 to November 26, 1946, several steps looking toward the establishment of an International Trade Organization were taken during the early months of 1947. The Preparatory Committee itself met for a second time, to consider the recommendations of its Interim Drafting Committee, and the Economic and Social Council discussed several related trade and employment questions.

In an effort to complete work on the ITO draft charter and to effect tariff reductions, the Preparatory Committee of the International Trade Conference at Geneva has been working since April 10, 1947, to iron out difficulties in the most extensive multilateral trade negotiations so far attempted. After extensive preparation of the charter, a process which began in London during the autumn of 1946 and continued at Lake-Success in January and February, 1947, discussions reached the final stage in the Geneva meeting. However, it was expected that revision of the charter would not be completed until the close of tariff negotiations, because necessary changes in the text of the charter depended, in large measure, on the outcome of the tariff talks.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has been established as a specialized agency under the United Nations. An agreement, negotiated between the Preparatory Commission and the United Nations in June, 1946, was later approved by the General Conference of UNESCO, and by the General Assembly of the United Nations, provided that UNESCO, should maintain direct working relations with the Economic and Social Council's commissions and committees, with the Secretariat of the United Nations, and with other specialized agencies.

At the conclusion of the First General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization held in Paris during November and December, 1946, over one hundred proposals had been formulated for consideration during 1947, several of which were enumerated as being pressing projects for the current year. Problems requiring immediate attention included 1) rehabilitation in devastated areas, 2) a wide-spread attack on the problem of illiteracy, 3) a study of psychological and social tensions likely to lead to war, 4) a concerted effort in conjunction with the Commission of Human Rights of the United Nations to reduce obstructions to the free flow of information, 5) the study of a possible international broadcasting network, and 6) the proposed creation of the International Institute of the Amazon in order to deal with problems of that tropical area. For these and other projects it was emphasized that exchange of students, scholars, scientists and media of information was necessary and should be forthcoming.

Designed as a collective instrument to raise the standards of health and well-being of all peoples throughout the world, a new World Health Organization was launched, under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council, by the International Health Conference, which met at Hunter College, June 19 to July 22, 1946.

Pending the ratification of the Constitution of WHO by 26 members of the United Nations which will bring the Organization into existence, the Interim Commission, under the chairmanship of Dr. Andrija Stampar (Yugoslavia) and composed of health experts representing 18 Member States, has proceeded, as a provisional body, with the work of unifying international health operations and services. It had considered solutions for present urgent health problems and laid the groundwork for the convoking of the first World Health Assembly.

Executive Board: Preliminary plans for the remainder of 1947 were considered by the Executive Board of UNESCO, which met in Paris on April 10, 1947. Among various projects studied by the Board, two, in particular, occupied attention because of the immediate need for work in those fields. These were the re-education of Germany and the removal of barriers to the free flow of news and ideas between different countries.

On May 6, 1947, the Universal Postal Union convened in Paris to consider an agenda of some 700 items, among which was the question of affiliation of the Union with the United Nations as a specialized agency.1 The General Commission, having decided in favor of affiliation, the President of the Congress (Le Mouel), on May 29, notified the Secretary-General of the United Nations that a draft agreement intended to establish this relationship between the two organizations had been adopted on the previous day. Subject to several amendments in form and substance, the draft approved in Paris followed closely the report and proposed draft adopted at the Meeting of Postal Experts at Lake Success in December 1946. In communicating the adoption of the draft agreement, the President of the Universal Postal Congress requested that negotiations with the United Nations be undertaken before the recess of the Congress on June 22, and arrangements accordingly were completed for a meeting between the ECOSOC Committee on Negotiations with Specialized Agencies and representatives of the Universal Postal Union in Paris on June 17.

To provide a final solution to the problems of hundreds of thousands of refugees and persons displaced by the war and who still remain in the occupied zones of Europe, the International Refugee Organization was established by the United Nations. The General Assembly adopted the Constitution of the Organization on December 15 by a vote of 30 to 5, with 18 abstentions, and the agreement was opened for signature the following day.

Established on March 22, 1945, the Arab League has envisaged a development of Arab unity through a regional planning program designed to provide a nucleus which would facilitate political cooperation in the Arab Near East. Salient objectives of the League, as set out in its covenant, include protection of the independence of member states, and close cooperation between member states in economic and financial affairs, problems connected with nationality, passports, visas and extradition, and public health and social matters. Special committees organized under the provisions of the League Pact have endeavoured to promote economic and social development by proposing such measures as 1) a draft treaty for a unified educational system which would include exchange of students and teachers, and development of libraries, 2) establishment of permanent offices on cultural affairs and legal problems, 3) development of trade and communications, 4) a postal union, customs union, common citizenship and a passport system. These committees, while able to formulate draft agreements, were to submit such agreements first to the Council and then to the several Arab states for approval.